ABOUT NEW YORK

ABOUT NEW YORK; Friday the Rabbi Was Threatened

By Michael T. Kaufman

Published: January 8, 1994

SOMETIMES there are stories in this city that, while dramatic and interesting, still make you wonder whether they should be written. Will publication reward fools and boors with the attention they crave? Might it encourage folly? The tale of Lev Tsitrin and his threat to spit in the face of Rabbi Jules Harlow is that kind of story.

It began innocuously last year when Mr. Tsitrin, a Brooklyn resident, submitted an article to the editors of Conservative Judaism, a serious quarterly published by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and the Rabbinical Assembly, the international organization of Conservative rabbis. The article, "The Correct Theology," was read and rejected.

As every writer knows, rejections hurt. Many who have received them have privately cursed those who turned back their work. But Mr. Tsitrin was not content to limit himself to something like that. He called Rabbi Harlow, the executive editor of the magazine, to ask what was wrong with the piece, and although Rabbi Harlow was not the one who had returned the manuscript, he invited the writer to discuss the work with him.

But the meeting did not mollify the author of "The Correct Theology." After it was over he kept calling Rabbi Harlow to argue for its publication. After a number of such calls, Mr. Tsitrin decided to let others know of what he regarded as the slights that he and his work were suffering.

In a letter to this newspaper, he said he had found Rabbi Harlow's behavior unacceptable. Of the meeting with the rabbi, he wrote: "I explained him why I felt that a plain refusal was unsatisfactory. Religion is not a matter of taste or feeling, it is an attempt at describing a certain aspect of objective reality, and therefore arguments like 'I like it -- I don't like it' do not apply in a religious polemic. Like in physics or math, in theology the only valid criteria is true-false, makes sense -- does not."

Furthermore, he wrote, after he sent a logical chart outlining the truthfulness of his claims, Rabbi Harlow cut his telephone calls short. "I felt this was not right," Mr. Tsitrin wrote in the letter. "A rabbi should never turn his back to someone who needs help in understanding. I felt that a person like that had no right to be called a rabbi, and I decided to derabbi him. I thought that derabbi-ing should be humiliating in the same degree in which ordaining a rabbi was solemn, and I decided to derabbi Rabbi Harlow by spitting into his face." He sent a copy of the letter to the magazine.

Then, in another letter to The Times a few weeks ago, Mr. Tsitrin wrote that he had set the date and time to carry out his plan. He wrote that he would be going to Rabbi Harlow's office at the Jewish Theological Seminary at noon on Friday, Jan. 7, "to derabbi him by spitting into his face." A copy of this note was also mailed to the seminary.

A few minutes before the appointed time, Rabbi Harlow was in his office. He is a slight, gentle scholar, who has spent much of his life editing and translating prayer books. He described Mr. Tsitrin as a young man, apparently in his late 20's or early 30's, who regarded his own writing to be as demonstrably true as the Pythagorean theorem while rejecting any notion of editorial discretion.

After learning of the threat, Rabbi Harlow alerted the building security staff. But something went wrong, and a few minutes after noon Mr. Tsitrin appeared at the anteroom to the rabbi's sixth-floor office.

"Wait a minute," Rabbi Harlow said, closing the door between his study and the reception area. He called the building guards and 911, and when the guards arrived, he went out to greet the caller.

"So why are you here?" the rabbi asked in a calm and gentle voice.

"I had intended to spit in your face to derabbi you," said the clean-shaven young man wearing a pale blue parka. "But I see police are here, so I do not know if I want to do something that will bring me trouble. Maybe I can just symbolically spit. Is that O.K.? I will symbolically spit and say I do not consider you a rabbi anymore. O.K.?"

"But I am still a rabbi, of course," said Rabbi Harlow.

"A rabbi is supposed to concern himself with his fellow man," Mr. Tsitrin said, "and you have not done that. I am your fellow man." He also repeated his complaint that his submission had been rejected on subjective grounds. "If you do not publish articles that are right, then this place is a place of idolatry."

Mr. Harlow recalled that he had spoken with Mr. Tsitrin for quite a while.

"But after two hours you said you did not want to speak to me."

"No," said the rabbi, "I said I did not want to speak to you any more."

Mr. Tsitrin walked into the corridor and started telling two city police officers who had arrived there about the rejected piece and his desire to chastise the rabbi. Rabbi Harlow went back to his study.

After a minute or two, Mr. Tsitrin opened the door. "I've decided to check with a lawyer to see what could happen to me if I actually spit at you. If he tells me it is not very much I will be back. O.K.?"